Uber-efficient solar cells from nano
Posted: Mon Feb 07, 2011 2:20 pm
Futurity article
If they can get efficiency up that high, this could revolutionize solar power.Researchers believe that by constructing solar cells from germanium, silicon, and other materials, a solar cell’s efficiency—currently capped by a theoretical maximum of 31 percent—could be raised to a maximum efficiency of between 42 and 65 percent.
Conventional solar cells all operate on the same principle of “one photon in, one electron out,” says Gergely Zimanyi, professor of physics at University of California, Davis.
In other words, one particle of light, or photon, hits the solar cell and generates one electron to produce an electrical current.
